A fluid flow process (flow process) includes any process that involves the flow of fluid through pipes, ducts, or other conduits, as well as through fluid control devices such as pumps, valves, orifices, heat exchangers, and the like. Flow processes are found in many different industries, such as the oil and gas industry, refining, food and beverage industry, chemical and petrochemical industry, pulp and paper industry, power generation, pharmaceutical industry, and water and wastewater treatment industry. The fluid within the flow process may be a single phase fluid (e.g., gas, liquid or liquid/liquid mixture) and/or a multi-phase mixture (e.g. paper and pulp slurries or other solid/liquid mixtures), wherein the multi-phase mixture may be a two-phase liquid/gas mixture, a solid/gas mixture, a solid/liquid mixture, a gas entrained liquid or a three-phase mixture.
In certain flow processes, such as those found in the oil and gas industries, it is desirable to separate the liquid (e.g., oil and/or water) and gas (e.g., air) components of the fluid. This is typically accomplished using a separator, which is an item of production equipment used to separate the liquid components of the fluid stream from the gaseous components. The liquid and gas components flow from the separator in separate legs (pipes), with the leg containing the gas component referred to as the “gas leg” and the leg containing the liquid component referred to as the “liquid leg”. Each of the legs typically includes a flow meter to determine the volumetric flow rate of the gas and fluid components, respectively. Furthermore, for the gas leg, the volumetric flow rate is commonly measured using an orifice plate.
Unfortunately however, current gas/liquid separator devices tend to be large, bulky and inefficient devices that are expensive to implement and operate. For example, current separators require a host of electronic equipment to control the operation of the separation device. This type of sensitive equipment is expensive to maintain. Furthermore, the carry-over of liquid into the gas leg of the gas/liquid separator commonly occurs, wherein the liquid typically takes the form of a mist comprised of small liquid droplets. In order to address this issue, most separators include mist catchers designed to recover the liquid carried over. This tends to increase the size of the already bulky separator devices. Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide an in-line solution for accurately conducting multi-phase in-line measurements while eliminating the separator device.